Bob Brewer was born and raised in western Arkansas. As a youngster, his great-uncle introduced him to a mystery that included wilderness paths, hidden symbols, carvings on trees and rocks, and the topography of certain areas. The old man was the keeper of some sort of secret knowledge that he kept to himself...

[Friday is September 11, 2020 -- during the the morning of September 11, 2001, I got a phone call from my friend Mike in Minneapolis -- Mike quickly said, "Turn on the TV." then hung up -- I turned on the TV just as the 2nd plane slammed into the 2nd Twin Tower -- another turning point of infamy]...

I was once in the Eye of a Hurricane -- much excitement. By the spring of 1964, I had spent two years at the University of Minnesota, majoring in mathematics, vacillating between becoming an architect or a mining engineer, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life...

Many philosophers believe that thoughts are deeds. If you project benevolent thoughts, you help create a benevolent environment. Projecting hostility creates hostility, etc. As we sow, so shall we reap. Cleve Backster, America's foremost lie-detector expert, hooked up a lie-detector to a plant about 40 years ago in an attempt to see how long it would take water to reach the leaves. ...

One of the fastest ways to fail in life is to work so hard your manager will think you're after his job. In 1976, one year before our semi-blissful marriage of five years, my ex-wife and I went on a sailing adventure in the West Indies. We paid good money to be deckhands on a 248-foot, four-mast schooner, island-hopping the Leeward Islands of St. Martins, St. Barts, St Eustatius, St. Kitts and Nevis for two weeks...

By definition, a republic is a union of independent entities, usually associated with common business and financial interests, favoring a restricted government role in economic life. After winning independence from the British in 1776, the founding fathers became engaged in a debate as to exactly what form of government the new country should take...

In 1909, Oliver P. Smith developed a mechanical rabbit for use in dog racing. He hired Edward J. O’Hare, a lawyer in St. Louis, to help patent the device. Smith and O’Hare placed the device in dog tracks, most of which were owned by the Mob in those days, in Florida, Massachusetts and Illinois...

When George Washington became President in 1789, life expectancy at birth for Americans was 34.5 years for males and 36.5 years for females. In 1801, when Thomas Jefferson became president, 20 percent of the people in the U.S. were slaves. Globally, there are some 1,800 thunderstorms in progress at any given moment and lightning strikes the planet 100 times every second. Lightning kills more people in the United States (400 per year) than any other natural disaster...

Recently, the director of communications of Taco Bell Corporation was asked to prepare a memo reviewing the company’s training programs and materials. In the memo was a reference to the “pedagogical approach” used by one of the training manuals. The day after the memo was circulated to members of the executive committee, the author of the memo was summoned to the office of the director of Human Resources and told that the executive vice president wanted him out of the building by noon. ...

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK was the title of a best-selling book back in the 60’s. Being a novice at life at the time, I bought a copy. When I finished reading it, I knew as much about sex as I did before I read it, which was about as much as I knew about brain surgery...

The search for the ideal place to live has been a big part of my life. I prefer a quiet rural area far from neighbors with a hilly terrain, affordable housing, moderate weather and earthy women. I've lived in scores of places in 12 states now and have yet to find heaven on earth, but I keep getting closer...

Writing is a very risky business. You have to expose your soul to the world, then look at yourself in the mirror when the world fails to embrace your thoughts. Ernest Hemingway, American Author (1899 - 1961) Committed suicide, shooting himself with his favorite shotgun...

Life is often stranger than fiction. Compiled from various sources over time, the following items are purported to be true stories. Obviously, we can’t all be the brightest bulb on the tree. California, the land of fruit and nuts, always has more than its share of dim bulbs. ...

There are two annoying creatures that invade my little corner of the world during the summer months – tourists and chiggers. According to the dictionary, a chigger is a 6-legged mite larva that sucks the blood of vertebrates and causes intense irritation...

Life is a journey without a map. You come to a fork in the road of life and choose a direction. When things that once shocked you begin to amuse you, you've crossed the first barrier of true wisdom. Every time I reach a new age in life, I spend a long day dwelling on my painful past, blessing the present and ignoring the future. Then I wake up the next day and start all over again...

The summer of 1947 was an amazingly eventful moment in human history, in more ways than one. In June of 1947, a French scholar named Jean Doresse discovered the importance of 52 books, referred to as the Nag Hammadi Codices, found in December of 1945 in a cave in Upper Egypt. ...

A synchronicity is a meaningful coincidence of events that are not connected, often involving a metaphysical overtone. It's a psychically conditioned relativity of time and space. An Internet website recently had an interesting list of amazing coincidences. However, they seem more like synchronicities to me -- like a shot of destiny to wake up the soul...

Forrest Fenn is a former Vietnam fighter pilot and successful art dealer in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1988, Fenn was diagnosed with cancer. During his illness, he came up with an idea to hide a chest of treasure for anyone to find. He filled a chest with rare coins, gold nuggets, gemstones, jewelry and a jar containing his autobiography. His intention was to hide the treasure chest and end his life nearby...

On February 3, 1959, a small airplane crashed in a field near Clear Lake, Iowa. The pilot and his passengers, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, all perished. It was the day the music died. "I can't remember if I cried... When I read about his widowed bride... But something touched me deep inside... The day the music died." (from American Pie by Don McLean)...

Life is like an unorthodox teacher -- you get the test first and the lesson comes later. During the evening of January 26, 2009, my region of the country was having a severe ice storm. Ice was forming on trees, causing them to literally explode as large branches were falling, trees were splitting down the middle and some were toppling from the root...